Login
Login

William Le Baron Jenney

{{Short description|American architect and engineer}}

{{Use American English|date=May 2021}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2012}}

{{Infobox architect

|name = William LeBaron Jenney

|image = Jenney.jpg

|image_size = 250px

|caption =

|nationality = American

|birth_date = {{Birth date|1832|9|25}}

|birth_place = Fairhaven, Massachusetts, U.S.

|death_date = {{death date and age|1907|6|15|1832|9|25}}

|death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.

|alma_mater = École Centrale Paris

|practice =

|significant_buildings= Home Insurance Building in Chicago

|significant_projects =

|significant_design = metal-framed skyscraper

}}

William Le Baron Jenney (September 25, 1832 – June 14, 1907) was an American architect and engineer known for building the first skyscraper in 1884.

In 1998, Jenney was ranked number 89 in the book 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium.

Life and career

Jenney was born in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, on September 25, 1832, the son of William Proctor Jenney and Eliza LeBaron Gibbs. Jenney began his formal education at Phillips Academy, Andover, in 1846, and at the Lawrence Scientific school at Harvard in 1853, but transferred to École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures (École Centrale Paris) to study engineering and architecture.{{ref label|SEAoT|1|^}} In Paris he discovers the writings of Viollet-le-Duc and he will become one of his followers: "the research and discoveries of Viollet le Duc surpass anything that any other author has been able to write".{{Cite book |last=Le Baron Jenney |first=William |title=Principles and Practice of Architecture |publisher=Cobb, Pritchard |year=1869 |location=Chicago |pages=5 |language=english}}

Image:Home Insurance Building.JPG in Chicago built in 1885 (photo after a 1891 addition of 2 more floors)]]

At École Centrale Paris, he learned the latest iron construction techniques as well as the classical functionalist doctrine of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand (1760–1834) - Professor of Architecture at the Ecole Polytechnique.{{Cite web|url=http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/architecture/william-le-baron-jenney.htm|title=William le Baron Jenney: Biography of Skyscraper Architect}} He graduated in 1856, one year after his classmate, Gustave Eiffel, the designer of the Eiffel Tower.{{ref label|SEAoT|7|^}}

In 1861, he returned to the US to join the Union Army as an engineer in the Civil War, designing fortifications for Generals Sherman and Grant.

By the end of the war, he had become a major, and was Engineer-in-Charge at Nashville's Union headquarters.{{ref label|SEAoT|1|^}} After the war, in 1867, Jenney moved to Chicago and began his own architectural office, which specialized in commercial buildings and urban planning. {{Citation needed|date=June 2023}}

During the late 1870s, he commuted weekly to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to start and teach in the architecture program at the University of Michigan. In later years future leaders of the Chicago School like Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, William Holabird, and Martin Roche, performed their architectural apprenticeships on Jenney's staff.{{ref label|SEAoT|1|^}}

On May 8, 1867, Jenney and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Hannah Cobb, from Cleveland, Ohio, were married.{{ref label|SEAoT|7|^}} They had two children named Max and Francis.{{ref label|SEAoT|7|^}}

File:Walter Newberry House 1889.jpg, 1889]]

Jenney was elected an Associate of the American Institute of Architects in 1872 and became a Fellow in 1885. He served as first Vice President from 1898 to 1899.{{ref label|SAH|4|^}} In Chicago, he designed the Ludington Building and Manhattan Building, both built in 1891 and National Historic Landmarks.{{Cite web |date=2023-06-11 |title=William Le Baron Jenney {{!}} American engineer and architect {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Le-Baron-Jenney |access-date=2023-06-16 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}} He also designed the Horticultural Building for the World's Columbian Exposition (1893) held in Chicago.{{Cite web |title=William Le Baron Jenney {{!}} Encyclopedia.com |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/architecture-biographies/william-le-baron-jenney |access-date=2023-06-16 |website=www.encyclopedia.com}}{{Cite web |title=World's Columbian Exposition: The Architects and Their Buildings |url=https://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA96/WCE/architects.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19970728141059/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA96/WCE/architects.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 28, 1997 |access-date=2023-06-16 |website=xroads.virginia.edu}}

Advent of the steel-frame skyscraper

Jenney is best known for designing the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago. The building was the first fully metal-framed building and is considered the first skyscraper. It was built from 1884 to 1885, enlarged by adding two stories in 1891, and demolished in 1931.{{ref label|PBS|3|^}} In his designs, he used metal columns and beams instead of stone and brick to support the building's upper levels.

Image:Leiter II Building, South State & East Congress Streets, Chicago, Cook County, IL.jpg, South State & East Congress Streets, Chicago]]

The steel needed to support the Home Insurance Building weighed only one-third as much as a ten-story building made of heavy masonry.{{ref label|PBS|3|^}} Using this method, the weight of the building was reduced, thus allowing the possibility to construct even taller structures. Later, he solved the problem of fireproof construction for tall buildings by using masonry, iron, and terra cotta flooring and partitions. From 1889 to 1891, he displayed his system in the construction of the Second Leiter Building, also in Chicago.

According to a popular story, one day he came home early and surprised his wife who was reading. She put her book down on top of a birdcage and ran to meet him. He strode across the room, lifted the book, and dropped it back on the bird cage two or three times. Then, he exclaimed: "It works! It works! Don’t you see? If this little cage can hold this heavy book, why can’t an iron or steel cage be the framework for a whole building?" Jenney applied his new idea to the construction of the Home Insurance Building, the first skyscraper in the world, erected in 1884 at the corner of LaSalle and Monroe Streets in Chicago. Another source cites the inspiration for the steel skyscraper as coming from vernacular, Philippine architecture, where wooden framed construction gave Jenney the idea.Condit C., The Chicago School of Architecture. A History of Commercial and Public Building, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1964, Chapter 4, "Jenney and the New Structural Technique," p. 81. The Home Insurance Building was the first example of a steel skeleton building, the first grid of iron columns, girders, beams, and floor joists ever constructed.{{Cite web |date=2018-08-21 |title=Home Insurance Building |url=https://www.history.com/topics/landmarks/home-insurance-building |access-date=2023-06-16 |website=HISTORY |language=en}}

Legacy

He died in Los Angeles, California, on June 15, 1907. After Jenney's death, his ashes were scattered over his wife's grave, just south of the Eternal Silence section of Uptown's Graceland Cemetery.{{ref label|graveyard|5|^}} In 1998, Jenney was ranked number 89 in the book 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium.{{ref label|SEAoT|7|^}}

Original notes and papers of Jenney, including "Jenney's 1884 holograph notebook containing, among other things, structural calculations for the Home Insurance Building, and his undated sketch entitled 'Key to the sky scraper.'", are held by the Art Institute of Chicago.{{cite web|url=http://digital-libraries.saic.edu/cdm/ref/collection/findingaids/id/17112 |title=Elmer C. Jensen Papers, 1871-2014 (bulk 1880s-1950s) |publisher=Art Institute of Chicago|date=2012|access-date=May 22, 2019}} Finding aid, including biographical info on William Le Baron Jenney and Elmer C. Jensen, published 2012.

Projects

File:Horticultural Building (3572763499).jpg]]

References

{{reflist}}

=Notes=

{{refbegin}}

  1. {{note label|SEAoT|1|^}}{{cite web|url=http://www.seaot.org/chapters/austin/eor/jenney |author=Haden, Erik |title=William LeBaron Jenney |work=Structural Engineers Association of Texas |access-date=2005-12-17 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050519074524/http://www.seaot.org/chapters/austin/eor/jenney/ |archive-date=May 19, 2005 }}
  2. {{note label|PBS|3|^}}{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/wonder/structure/home_insurance.html|title=Home Insurance Building|work=PBS Big Building Databank|access-date=2005-12-17}}
  3. {{note label|graveyard|5|^}}{{cite web|url=http://www.graveyards.com/IL/Cook/graceland/esilence.html|title=Graceland Cemetery|work=Graveyards of Chicago|access-date=2005-12-17}}

{{refend}}

=Further reading=

{{refbegin}}

  • {{cite book|author=Turak, Theodore|title=William Le Baron Jenney: A Pioneer of Modern Architecture (Architecture and Urban Design, No 17)|publisher=Umi Research Pr|year=1986|isbn=0-8357-1734-8}}

{{refend}}

External links

{{commons category|William Le Baron Jenney}}

  • [http://www.lib.colum.edu/archhistory/lejenney.htm Architect William LeBaron Jenney (1832–1907)]
  • {{Structurae person|id=d000019|name=William Le Baron Jenney}}
  • [https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9faycm William Le Beron Jenney: The Extraordinary Life History of an American who Graduated from Centrale Paris] (film)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenney, William Lebaron}}

Category:Chicago school architects

Category:Phillips Academy alumni

Category:1832 births

Category:1907 deaths

Category:Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni

Category:École Centrale Paris alumni

Category:19th-century American architects

Category:American expatriates in France

Category:Architects from Massachusetts

Category:Architects from Chicago

Category:Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning faculty

Category:Fellows of the American Institute of Architects

Category:People from Fairhaven, Massachusetts

Category:Skyscraper architects